Landing a new client is one of the great joys of being a freelance designer. It means finally taking on an exciting paid project and also putting food on the table. That said, figuring out what the new project entails and just how much food will be on your table can be a frustrating mess.

Yes, I’m talking about creating cost estimates for your prospective clients. It’s a vitally important task. On one hand, you’ll want to make sure that the estimate will cover everything the client needs. On the other, you will need to protect yourself against any unforeseen challenges in the project.

Back in May 2013, Adobe announced that it has had enough of Fireworks, and decided to feature-freeze its popular design software. While this clearly upset loyal Fireworks users, and the Envato Market community, the fact remains that Adobe Fireworks is no longer under active maintenance and for all practical purposes, its time to shine is over.

So, what does the future hold for Adobe Fireworks? Is it really dead? Or is it still good enough to be considered as a worthy design tool?

Diving into the pool of graphic and UI design can be stressful. Your work won’t be great to start. But you can get better faster by setting fixed goals.

Most goals have a fixed end point where you can state “I’ve done it!”. Since design is more fluid and difficult to pinpoint growth, it’ll help if you target specific skills and work on those areas persistently.

But where should you focus?

Here’s my top tips for the catch-all skills every designer should understand. Whether you create posters, books, websites or mobile apps, you’ll notice improvements in your work by practicing these different areas of study. To get started find the areas in which you feel the weakest and practice until you’ve built up confidence.

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Today, WordPress is more than just a blogging platform: our favorite CMS is actually capable of handling all aspects of an online business.

eCommerce stores can track their orders, freelancers can invoice their clients directly, and bloggers can track their on-site metrics — all from within the WordPress dashboard. By handling everything from one place, it’s much easier to stay on top of your most important tasks.

Of course, it’s easy to understand why: with around 3.5 billion Google searches per day, search engines will always be a significant traffic source for websites.

Because search engine traffic is vital, never underestimate the importance of knowing where your website is ranking at all times. With this information on-hand, you can immediately identify a sudden rankings drop and respond accordingly.

Unfortunately, manually tracking your keywords is a time-consuming task – which is perhaps why so many of us neglect it! If you’re a WordPress user, however, it doesn’t have to be this way.